|
WHEN TO TEST
If you are becoming concerned about your child’s (or your own) learning style or strengths and weaknesses, neuropsychological testing can offer a window into their needs. We can also provide the testing necessary to get appropriate accommodations for you or your child for high stakes testing such as the SAT’s, AP tests, or advanced testing such as the GRE’s, LSAT’s, or MCAT’s. We have close relationships with a number of the area private schools, both general education and special education, and often evaluate their students for admission or learning supports. In addition, we see a number of public school students and are very comfortable in working with the DOE systems. We also have a great deal of experience working with gifted and 2E students, and can do the evaluations to ensure that these talented learners are being educated in a way to optimize their successes.
If you aren’t sure whether the time is right, we encourage you to arrange a consultation with Dr. King. Sometimes a simple play session or two with your child can clarify things; other times only a complete testing battery will provide the needed answers. If you are wondering whether your child might have ADHD, Learning Disabilities (including Language Delays or Dysgraphia, which are areas of specialization for us), an Autism Spectrum Disorder, they might be Gifted with Special Needs (2E), or have other challenges, we are here to help you.
PAYING FOR THE EVALUATION
A detailed evaluation is expensive. In order to make high quality evaluations accessible to as many people as possible, we can sometimes offer you the choice of having the evaluation conducted by a senior neuropsychologist or by an advanced graduate student under close supervision. While we must still charge for a graduate student’s time, we are able to offer these evaluations at a significant discount. However, there is often a long waiting list for these sliding-scale evaluations.
Our staff does accept some limited health insurance, and we are always happy to prepare a bill for you that can be submitted to your carrier for out of network coverage. However, you should be aware that health insurance typically covers only a very limited portion of the full evaluation, since they (providers) consider the bulk of the evaluation to be educational rather than medical and therefore out of their purview. They generally only cover neuropsychological assessments when the child (or adult) has a neurological condition such as a brain injury, dementia, or epilepsy.
While the public schools offer free testing, this testing simply describes the child’s deficits, without really explaining why they exist. This is all that Federal law mandates. Because of this, DOE testing is significantly less detailed than what we do. In addition, we can offer an unbiased assessment of your child’s needs; we aren’t influenced by what’s convenient for your child’s school.
In order to make it a bit easier to pay for the evaluation, we offer you the option of spreading your payment out into two parts. Half the payment is due when you first reserve time for the testing. The second half is payable at the time of the feedback session regarding test results.
THE ASSESSMENT
The first step in getting an assessment is for you to schedule an appointment to meet with Dr. King. This meeting, which is for the parents without children, will allow us to go through the child’s history, review any previous testing or other data, and understand exactly what your concerns are. If you decide to book the testing, this meeting is complimentary. If you don’t feel ready to commit at this time, you will be charged Dr. King’s usual rate for the session.
Once you are ready to begin the evaluation, it can often be started within a week or two. Testing consists of a core battery, plus various specialized tests depending on the referral questions. Many of the tests are untimed, so it is difficult to predict the exact length of the test battery, but it typically takes 10-12 hours in total.
A typical core battery consists of:
We will complement this with specific objective testing as well as teacher/parent/self surveys as indicated for:
We break the testing up into multiple sessions, ranging in length from 45 minutes to a half day, depending on the child’s needs. This allows us to see your child once s/he is comfortable with us and the testing environment, providing much more accurate results. In addition, many children with learning challenges are frustrated or discouraged, and we can also evaluate your child’s emotional functioning if that is an area of concern. Testing can be scheduled once a week, or more frequently if it is convenient. We try to schedule testing at times when the child isn’t too tired from school, in order to get accurate results.
THE REPORT
After the evaluation is complete, the tester will study the results in great detail, looking in particular at the interactions between your child’s various test results and skills. Several weeks after the testing is completed, we will meet with you to go over the results and their implications. This session usually lasts an hour to 1 1/2 hours, as we discuss our findings and recommendations, and your child’s needs. The feedback session is included in the testing fee; if you want to schedule additional follow up sessions, those can be arranged at a per session rate.
At the time of the feedback session, you will get a detailed report, often in excess of 20 pages long, that will discuss your child’s strengths, weaknesses, and needs. We will make instructional recommendations, recommendations for any necessary accommodations or changes in school placement, and a detailed discussion of where to go from here. Our goal is to understand and to help you to understand why your child is having the problems they are having, not simply to describe those limitations. We will also make many recommendations regarding ways to teach your child successfully through her/his strengths so that learning can continue while you are working on addressing his/her deficits.
FOLLOWING UP
Sometimes we recommend further evaluations or services, such as a consultation with a child psychiatrist or occupational therapist or speech therapist. When we feel your child needs such services or consultations, we will help you in procuring them. In some instances, these services can even be provided through our offices so that your child and you are coming to a familiar place.
If you are becoming concerned about your child’s (or your own) learning style or strengths and weaknesses, neuropsychological testing can offer a window into their needs. We can also provide the testing necessary to get appropriate accommodations for you or your child for high stakes testing such as the SAT’s, AP tests, or advanced testing such as the GRE’s, LSAT’s, or MCAT’s. We have close relationships with a number of the area private schools, both general education and special education, and often evaluate their students for admission or learning supports. In addition, we see a number of public school students and are very comfortable in working with the DOE systems. We also have a great deal of experience working with gifted and 2E students, and can do the evaluations to ensure that these talented learners are being educated in a way to optimize their successes.
If you aren’t sure whether the time is right, we encourage you to arrange a consultation with Dr. King. Sometimes a simple play session or two with your child can clarify things; other times only a complete testing battery will provide the needed answers. If you are wondering whether your child might have ADHD, Learning Disabilities (including Language Delays or Dysgraphia, which are areas of specialization for us), an Autism Spectrum Disorder, they might be Gifted with Special Needs (2E), or have other challenges, we are here to help you.
PAYING FOR THE EVALUATION
A detailed evaluation is expensive. In order to make high quality evaluations accessible to as many people as possible, we can sometimes offer you the choice of having the evaluation conducted by a senior neuropsychologist or by an advanced graduate student under close supervision. While we must still charge for a graduate student’s time, we are able to offer these evaluations at a significant discount. However, there is often a long waiting list for these sliding-scale evaluations.
Our staff does accept some limited health insurance, and we are always happy to prepare a bill for you that can be submitted to your carrier for out of network coverage. However, you should be aware that health insurance typically covers only a very limited portion of the full evaluation, since they (providers) consider the bulk of the evaluation to be educational rather than medical and therefore out of their purview. They generally only cover neuropsychological assessments when the child (or adult) has a neurological condition such as a brain injury, dementia, or epilepsy.
While the public schools offer free testing, this testing simply describes the child’s deficits, without really explaining why they exist. This is all that Federal law mandates. Because of this, DOE testing is significantly less detailed than what we do. In addition, we can offer an unbiased assessment of your child’s needs; we aren’t influenced by what’s convenient for your child’s school.
In order to make it a bit easier to pay for the evaluation, we offer you the option of spreading your payment out into two parts. Half the payment is due when you first reserve time for the testing. The second half is payable at the time of the feedback session regarding test results.
THE ASSESSMENT
The first step in getting an assessment is for you to schedule an appointment to meet with Dr. King. This meeting, which is for the parents without children, will allow us to go through the child’s history, review any previous testing or other data, and understand exactly what your concerns are. If you decide to book the testing, this meeting is complimentary. If you don’t feel ready to commit at this time, you will be charged Dr. King’s usual rate for the session.
Once you are ready to begin the evaluation, it can often be started within a week or two. Testing consists of a core battery, plus various specialized tests depending on the referral questions. Many of the tests are untimed, so it is difficult to predict the exact length of the test battery, but it typically takes 10-12 hours in total.
A typical core battery consists of:
- IQ testing
- a comprehensive neuropsychological evaluation including all aspects of cognitive functioning
- measures of emotional functioning as indicated.
We will complement this with specific objective testing as well as teacher/parent/self surveys as indicated for:
- ADHD
- Executive Functioning
- Language Skills
- Fine Motor Skills and Dysgraphia
- Visual Processing Skills
- Learning Skills
- Memory Skills
- Emotional Adjustment and Dynamics
We break the testing up into multiple sessions, ranging in length from 45 minutes to a half day, depending on the child’s needs. This allows us to see your child once s/he is comfortable with us and the testing environment, providing much more accurate results. In addition, many children with learning challenges are frustrated or discouraged, and we can also evaluate your child’s emotional functioning if that is an area of concern. Testing can be scheduled once a week, or more frequently if it is convenient. We try to schedule testing at times when the child isn’t too tired from school, in order to get accurate results.
THE REPORT
After the evaluation is complete, the tester will study the results in great detail, looking in particular at the interactions between your child’s various test results and skills. Several weeks after the testing is completed, we will meet with you to go over the results and their implications. This session usually lasts an hour to 1 1/2 hours, as we discuss our findings and recommendations, and your child’s needs. The feedback session is included in the testing fee; if you want to schedule additional follow up sessions, those can be arranged at a per session rate.
At the time of the feedback session, you will get a detailed report, often in excess of 20 pages long, that will discuss your child’s strengths, weaknesses, and needs. We will make instructional recommendations, recommendations for any necessary accommodations or changes in school placement, and a detailed discussion of where to go from here. Our goal is to understand and to help you to understand why your child is having the problems they are having, not simply to describe those limitations. We will also make many recommendations regarding ways to teach your child successfully through her/his strengths so that learning can continue while you are working on addressing his/her deficits.
FOLLOWING UP
Sometimes we recommend further evaluations or services, such as a consultation with a child psychiatrist or occupational therapist or speech therapist. When we feel your child needs such services or consultations, we will help you in procuring them. In some instances, these services can even be provided through our offices so that your child and you are coming to a familiar place.